This invention relates generally to the field of Life Cycle Assessment (LCA), and more particularly to a process for combining Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with Activity Based Costing (ABC) using relational database software. This software program application, referred to herewithin as the LCAPIX module, can be used to determine, by a proactive means, what the environmental burden and associated costs are or may be for current and future products, processes, or services. Specifically, the software utilizes elements normally associated with Activity Based Costing, including drivers, driver values and driver factors for determining the environmental burden using associated valuation for a complete Life Cycle Assessment. Additional uses of the software program application includes providing a means by which an environmental management strategy can be implemented using International Standards Organization (ISO) 14000 guidelines adopted in 1992 for Life Cycle Assessment, and also provides a means for improving ecoefficiency.
Life Cycle Assessment/Analysis; LCA, can be defined as an objective process to evaluate the environmental burdens associated with a product, process, or service by identifying and quantifying energy and materials used and wastes released to the environment. The assessment includes the entire life cycle, from xe2x80x9ccradle-to-gravexe2x80x9d of the product, process, or activity, and encompasses the extraction and processing of raw materials, manufacturing, transportation and distribution, use, reuse, maintenance, recycling, and final disposal. A complete Life Cycle Assessment/Analysis is comprised of the following three stages;
(I) The Inventory Analysis, which is an objective quantification of the raw materials, energy requirements, air/water effluents, solid wastes, manufacturing, processing, formulation, distribution and transportation, use/reuse/maintenance, recycling, and other processes and services required within a previously defined system boundary. The LCA Inventory must have scientific basis, be quantitative, appropriately detailed, replicable, comprehensive, broadly applicable, consistent, and peer-reviewed.
(II) Impact Assessment, which is the stage where the Inventory is analyzed for its effect on the environment and includes the following steps:
(1) Classification, defined as the characterization of the inventoried elements
(2) Characterization, which is the analysis and quantification of the inventoried elements, and
(3) Valuation which is how the data of different specific categories associated with the inventoried elements are weighted and compared for further interpretation.
The valuation data should be subjected to a sensitivity analysis or equivalent analysis to ensure meaningfulness within the scientific and technical community
(III) Improvement Assessment, here defined as the systematic evaluation of the needs and opportunities required to reduce an environmental burden. This involves changes in the product design, raw material use, processing, waste management, etc. required to improve the product, process, or service.
This conventional approach to LCA was developed in 1991-1993 by SETAC, the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, and then subsequently adopted by the ISO 14000 committee (International Standards Organization) on Environmental Management Systems and as schematically presented in FIG. 2. The arrows associated with FIG. 2 indicate that the xe2x80x9ctrianglexe2x80x9d of (I) inventory, (II) impact analysis, and (III) improvement analysis (or assessment) is a continuous process so that improvement, by reduction of environmental burden, can be accomplished.
Activity based costing, ABC, can be defined as a non-traditional accounting method which encompasses determination of the costs associated with any action that can be performed by a human or machine. Traditional accounting reports generally have little in common with manufacturing results. Activity Based Costing/Management (ABC/M) is a realization that traditional accounting procedures do not empower management to sufficiently identify and reduce costs and wastes. Activity Based Management, ABM, analyzes and utilizes the information supplied by Activity Based Costing to yield continuous improvement strategies and conditions. ABC includes determination of the costs for all products, projects or services associated with an activity so that continuous cost reduction improvement strategies and conditions can be accomplished.
A typical approach to ABC includes the use of drivers, driver factors, and driver values, which are specific to a task or set of tasks associated with the activity that is being reviewed on a cost basis. Once the specific operations are determined, for example welding for the manufacture of a metal box, drivers are developed that would include length of the weld and the time taken to perform the welding operation. The driver units, for example could include inches, for the length of the weld, and minutes for the time taken in welding (as shown in the screen capture of FIG. 11d). Driver values may be estimated or taken directly from the product, process, or service based on the knowledge of the individual performing the task required for the item(s) under analysis.
In the past, the conventional approach to performing LCA or ABC has been either by humans writing xe2x80x9cpen and paperxe2x80x9d reports that took weeks or months to prepare. These reports were often static in that the data and subsequent analysis could not be easily changed or compared as new or additional information became available. FIG. 1 shows the conventional LCA approach using energy and with raw materials inputs. Assessing effluent outputs completes the major elements of a traditional LCA. With the advent of software and spreadsheet systems such as Excel and Lotus 1,2,3 together with the provision and use of electronic databases, both LCA and ABC studies have been used at an increasing rate because the manpower and costs associated with performing such studies has decreased dramatically.
Within the last 10 years, LCA software programs have been developed to manipulate data within databases and provide valuation results according to the traditional approach shown in FIG. 1, where the data from these LCA software programs is predominately in the form of mass and energy balances including input and output to and from the manufacturing site or within various operations inside the manufacturing site. Likewise, for processes or services, data is provided regarding inputs or influents and outputs or effluents. FIG. 3 is a block diagram depicting the LCA approach for the available software tools existing prior to the present invention. In the conventional approach, using mass and energy balance data, the user provides only the amounts of each inventoried item. The software tool then provides the valuation units (ELU""sxe2x80x94environmental load units for examplexe2x80x94or other valuation schemes) from a database and the program calculates the total environmental impact. The missing information in this approach is significant, in that several inventoried items required for each process specified by the user, are not included. Dimensions of the product, size of the process equipment, or time required to perform a task are also elements missing from the conventional LCA software program.
In short, there has not been an easy and useful technique to provide for analysis of the product, process or service based on the specific tasks or activities required for each of these items (while also incorporating data from mass and energy balances).
As can now be understood by the foregoing explanation, there has also been no known system for analysis of the manufacture of a product, development of a process, or provision of a service that allows for performing a Life Cycle Assessment in a manner such that an Activity Based Costing approach can also be included. Further, there has been no earlier known inventive concept for combining these two traditional methods from the two uniquely different disciplines of engineering science and accounting and making computer software available such that one who has little or no skill in either discipline could simultaneously or sequentially or at some later time accomplish both an LCA and ABC study. The goal of many businesses, organizations, and individuals exists to rapidly collect meaningful, task-related data for input and generate dynamic graphical reports that would empower management to take appropriate steps to reduce either current or future environmental burdens and simultaneously reduce associated costs. An additional need that exists is for the provision of a relational database that is easily accessed by xe2x80x9cuser friendlyxe2x80x9d software such that the same individual who has little or no skill in the traditional engineering and accounting disciplines may provide these same LCA/ABC dynamic graphical reports both accurately and rapidly. Still another need exists to provide such a software system that incorporates all of the foregoing including the combination of ABC with LCA using object-oriented programming with relational databases with data that can continuously be updated and manipulated.
The software should also be network configurable for work-group applications and allow for report generation that is flexible to allow for selecting, rearranging, and graphically presenting results in a variety of ways. Information may have to be presented to senior management for strategic planning or manufacturing facility engineers for product/process improvement or even to a local citizen""s action group (CAP) for review of environmental burden(s). The software must be coupled with the relational database and the database should be accessible independent of the rest of the software. Modules or segments should be hierarchical so that the tasks associated with any item can be easily modeled and the drivers and task elements changed as frequently as required.
Object-oriented programs manipulate objects rather than data or text per se. Objects represent collections of items (both data and the functions that operate on those data) and can have information associated with them through address pointers that refer to other objects. For example, a screen object such as a process box, can itself be an information icon on a screen, but it must be linked to other sets of information in the database. When the user xe2x80x9cclicksxe2x80x9d on the object with a mouse, the software automatically links the screen object with the related information. While such developed software programs have existed for conventional mass and energy balance LCA work, the need remains for software that combines these aforementioned features with the ability to perform simultaneous, sequential, or subsequent LCA/ABC analysis using task oriented drivers.
LCA studies have been considered time consuming, costly and perceived as having little direct value for the manufacturer, process developer, or service provider. Without an immediate and considerable emphasis on current and future associated costs, this reasoning has restricted many known potential manufacturers or businesses, known to be sources of environmental xe2x80x9ccontaminationxe2x80x9d, to do little or nothing to improve their situation.
Measuring environmental burden or potential environmental burden should also include measuring costs associated with each and every elemental task that causes this burden. Without such a complete method of measurement, important details of prevention and improvement are easily overlooked or omitted. Previous LCA studies and software packages have not or could not adequately provide simultaneous detailed analysis with the speed and accuracy required for immediate action. There has not existed a simple means by which one unskilled or untrained in the separate professions of engineering science and accounting could perform a combined LCA/ABC analysis without considerable knowledge of each of these two demanding disciplines. The capability of one individual with a limited skill set to input data and receive dynamic LCA/ABC valuation reports by making changes in task associated drivers has also not existed. Additionally, the development of a simple hierarchical method for inputting data and associated drivers into a user friendly software program that provides a format so that associated basic elemental tasks can also be included (for any process, product, or service), has also not existed.
Accordingly, one primary object of this invention is to provide a novel system that merges the key aspects of the combined methodologies used for activity based costing (ABC) and life cycle assessment (LCA) into a an object oriented programmable software application coupled with a relational database. This software application is known and subsequently referred to as the LCAPIX module. The Venn diagram of FIG. 5 illustrates both the initial conceptual merger of these two methods previously used by individuals skilled in either the engineering sciences (LCA) or in the accounting (ABC) disciplines, as well as providing an overall model for the LCAPIX software module of the present invention. The top xe2x80x9cplatformxe2x80x9d of FIG. 5 illustrates that for both LCA and ABC, an inventory stage is required where LCA can be considered a subset of ABC and ABM. One then has a choice as to whether the next procedure will involve determination of costs via the conventional ABC approach or determination and valuation by xe2x80x9cenvironmental load indicesxe2x80x9d assigned to various activities and objects. In both cases, the evaluation of the inventoried data results in the Impact Assessment Stage (II) according to ISO 14000 practices. These operations may be performed simultaneously using the LCAPIX software module. Finally, the improvement analysis stage (III) is shown to reside on an identical platform, but at some later time, as the inventory stage, again indicating that LCA can be considered a subset of ABC. The improvement analysis stage can be used for environmental and strategic planning of the product, process, or service under analysis.
Another object of the invention is to provide a fast, reliable, dynamic system useful for analysis of a product, process, or service based on specific tasks or activities for each of these items. In performing this analysis, it is possible to combine the heretofore separate analysis of both LCA and ABC into a single format using the developed object oriented programmable software with associated database combined in the LCAPIX software application. The software program application, which is hereafter referred to as the LCAPIX module, was achieved directly from a higher level three dimensional xe2x80x9ctree and branchingxe2x80x9d model by special mapping techniques requiring truncation of the overall hierarchy. The development of a three dimensional model that provides the basis for which a two-dimensional software program application allows for infinite tiers or stages to simulate the product, process, or service under LCA/ABC analysis is also a feature of the present invention.
An additional object of the invention is to provide; a relational database that is easily accessed by xe2x80x9cuser friendlyxe2x80x9d software using object oriented or future, not yet developed, software programmed to include relational databases that can be continuously updated and manipulated such that one of little or no skill in the demanding disciplines of engineering science or accounting may receive the ability to simultaneously, sequentially, or at an earlier or later time accomplish both an ABC and LCA study. The present invention also empowers such individuals to collect and input meaningful tasks to the LCAPIX module (related to process, product, or service data). Then dynamic graphical (as well as textual) reports can be generated in order that appropriate steps may be taken to reduce current or future environmental burdens while also assessing associated costs.
Another object of the invention is the development of the LCAPIX software program application that provides for a five tier or stage or greater hierarchy (levels or layers are also acceptable terms) describing any product, process, or service for which a LCA/ABC analysis is desired.
Separate software applications for ABC or LCA are known to exist, but none are known to combine the elements of each by any means. The concept of associating drivers, driver values, and driver factors with environmental burden assessment is a novel feature of this invention required for combining the necessary aspects of LCA with ABC.
The LCAPIX module includes a means by which individual tasks incorporating the elements of time and associated costs for products, processes, or services can be included. FIG. 3 is a block diagram depicting the LCA approach for the available software tools existing prior to the present invention. In the conventional approach, using mass and energy balance data, the user provides only the amounts of each inventoried item. The software tool then provides the valuation units (ELU""sxe2x80x94environmental load units for examplexe2x80x94or other valuation schemes) from a database and the program calculates the total environmental impact. The missing information in this approach is significant. As provided for in FIG. 4, several inventoried items required for each process specified by the user are now included. Dimensions of the product, size of the process equipment, or time required to perform a task are also included to ensure that no essential tasks are omitted from the analysis. In an ABC analysis this approach is considered conventional and necessary. This approach, however, has not been used for the majority of LCA studies due to the often predetermined (and sometimes incorrect) assumption that only large amounts of mass or energy with associated large scales contribute significantly to the environmental load burden. For LCA studies that did attempt the more detailed approach, as indicated in FIG. 4, no available software existed that could perform the operations as performed by the LCAPIX software module.
Earlier and current LCA software applications allow primarily for energy and mass balance data collection but do not incorporate time related tasks or associated environmental burdens, thereby reducing the effectiveness of LCA studies. For implementing methods to improve Eco-efficiency and reduce production costs, the details of the task-related activities are essential for understanding what and how to make desired changes. The absence of any ABC techniques, further reduces the users ability to enhance Eco-efficiency or reduce the same production costs. In addition, earlier and current software applications were not developed to accommodate the ISO 14000 terminology and also include ABC methodology. Also, earlier and current software applications do not allow for product/process breakdown into elemental components nor do they allow for implementation of drivers and associated driver values. Conversion of LCA impact analysis information into a suitable format (graphical and numerical reports) which allows for rapid strategic comparisons together with ABC details is also novel.
FIG. 6 represents the LCA Product/Process Schema for the LCAPIX software and is a key element used in the approach to combine LCA with ABC to determine both environmental load burdens and associated costs for providing a product, process, or service. The figure shows a 5 stage or level stepwise procedure that can be used to model most common processes involved in product manufacture, processing methods or service provisions. Starting from the top and heading to the bottom (top to bottom analysis is equally effective and provided for in the LCAPIX software module), the user can first indicate the product/process type or name. At all; the remaining levels, data is associated with the level or stage to accomplish this final product, process, or service. Next, at level 2, a machine/ line process can be detailed. This Machine/Line stage could simulate an entire manufacturing portion of an industrial plant production line where one or thousands of widgets are produced daily, weekly, or monthly. At level 3, the subprocess level is provided for where data can be entered regarding some pre-machine line process stage item. At level 4, the operation level is provided for where data can be entered regarding some pre-subprocess stage item. Finally, at level 5, determination of a set of rudimentary tasks associated with the product at stage 1 is possible. The hierarchy described may be truncated at any level for less than 5 stepwise procedure or concatenated with subsequent procedures that can be modeled using 5 or less steps. In this way, a 10, 20, 100, 200, or even 2000 step wise procedure (such as required in producing an automobile or airplane) can be modeled. The flexibility of the model should now be evident in that the product at level 1 (under analysis) could be an entire building or just a desk within that building. Another example is that the product could be the wing of an aircraft or the entire airplane. In each case, the LCAPIX software module is capable of accepting the data for as many of the stages represented in the model hierarchy as required to fully and adequately perform an LCA/ABC analysis.
The LCAPIX module reduces the product, process, or service into 5 or more (or less) separate and distinct stages (including the product name) or levels as also shown in FIG. 7, and allows for completing ABC or LCA studies simultaneously (or individually at an earlier or later time). The relational database or library allows for simple access to stored data that may be associated with any of the levels or stages. Before the reduction of this invention to practice, no known practical hierarchical scheme generically describing a product, process, or service existed such that a useful associated software application combining LCA with ABC could be developed. By first perfecting this hierarchical scheme and subsequently developing the LCAPIX software application incorporating this scheme, LCA/ABC studies that heretofore required weeks or months can now be accomplished in days or even hours. Further, by development of the LCAPIX software module, instead of a group of individuals (or costly consultants) knowledgeable about LCA and ABC and associated engineering science and accounting principles, the requirement to complete an LCA/ABC study can be performed by one individual who is familiar with how the process, product, or service is accomplished. This is a feature that allows for large cost savings in both manhours (labor) and wages.
A main feature that allows for this cost and time reduction is that the LCAPIX module can separate each stage into a baseline process with an associated elemental task. The baseline process, as developed for the LCAPIX module and depicted in FIG. 7 (as well as being described according to the software module in the flowcharts of FIGS. 8-21), is the process below which no other simple operations exist. An elemental component must be associated with a baseline process. The baseline process can be at any level of the 5 (or more) hierarchical layers (from bottom-to-top; task, operation, subprocess, or machine line/process) but not the top layer (always the product name or typexe2x80x94process operation).
Yet another object of the invention is the relational database aspect of the LCAPIX module that allows for inexpensive and rapid access to multiple environmental valuation schemes or associated costs or both, used for various analysis and strategic planning methods.
Still yet another object of the invention is the conversion of LCA impact analysis information into a suitable form (graphical and numerical reports) for inclusion in managerial and executive decision making for the xe2x80x9cimprovementxe2x80x9d portion of the analysis. By incorporating the elements of time and individual tasks, the same analysis can provide the same report with costs in any international currency. The LCAPIX module builds the process hierarchical inventory of industrial and other systems, calculates the process substance amounts, and determines the process substance loads by accessing environmental valuation and cost databases. The LCAPIX module allows for multiple calculations or xe2x80x9ccasesxe2x80x9d which are determined in the analysis stage.
Concurrent valuation and cost considerations are generated using the same inventory, impact assessment and improvement analysis LCA process scheme originally developed by the ISO 14000 committee (SETACxe2x80x941992). This allows the user to follow ISO 14000 guidelines in the development of an organizational environmental strategy which provides for more than eventual ISO 14000 Certification, and also yields detailed information on process, product, or service Eco-efficiency improvements.
Summarizing the specific advantages of the LCAPIX software module includes; a system for combining Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with Activity Based Costing using object oriented relational database software for implementation of an environmental management strategy comprising the steps of:
i). combining Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) with Activity Based Costing (ABC) methodologies by including elemental components defined by drivers, driver units, and driver values or factors and a separate but easily accessible relational database included in an object oriented application software known as the LCAPIX module. The design flow of the LCAPIX module is described in detailed flowcharts FIGS. 8-22.
ii). including a product/process/service schema that allows for reduction and separation of any 5 step (or more or less) hierarchy for any overall process, product, or service into elemental tasks or baseline processes following the schematic representation of the two dimensional model as shown in FIG. 6;
iii). following the recommended guidelines and procedures within ISO 14000 and more specifically ISO 14040 Life Cycle Assessment methodologies for all three stages of Inventory (I), Determination (II), and Improvement (III) analysis;
iv) providing the unique ability to determine costs via ABC and environmental burdens via LCA (using valuation schemes) either simultaneously or at a later or earlier time by understanding the tasks required for making the product or performing the process or service without full comprehension of the underlying engineering science or accounting principles inherent in LCA/ABC studies and generating quick, reliable, comprehensive, dynamic, ABM style reports and graphical charts for immediate management review;
v). using a relational database separate and distinct from the LCAPIX application that allows for rapid comparison of environmental burdens from multiple environmental load centers as well as storing cost data using various forms of currency and allows for continuous updates and manipulation of data;
vi). allowing for breakdown or decomposition of any process, product, or service into elemental components that can be later used to assess different products, processes or services. converting of LCA impact analysis into a suitable form =
This summary does not include all the features of the present invention, but rather it should be understood these represent the preferred embodiments descriptive of the present invention as differentiated from the background of the invention detailed in that section above. Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following descriptions, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, wherein, by way of illustration and example, an embodiment of the present invention is disclosed.
During development of the actual software program application, inclusion of the LCAPIX module-Powerbuilder application provides a unique interface with Watcom.sql that avoids the necessity for both database code development and C++ object oriented programming. This allows for rapid, complete, and flexible application changes to suit the needs of any current or future potential users of the LCAPIX module.